About the Alliance
Through the Ohio Opioid Education Alliance, public and private businesses and organizations from across Ohio are coming together to help end the opioid crisis.
Frequently Asked Questions 
The Alliance was formed as a direct result of ADAMH’s Franklin County Opiate Action Plan, which was created by ADAMH at the direction of the City of Columbus and Franklin County officials. The plan was adopted in 2017 as a broad strategy to begin to tackle the opioid crisis.
Following conversations with ADAMH about how it could participate in activation of the Opiate Action Plan, the Nationwide Foundation established a fund at The Columbus Foundation with a $2 million donation to kick-start the work.
The Nationwide Foundation also played a key role in the formation of the Alliance by encouraging businesses, nonprofits and government agencies across the region to support the initiative in name, funding and other resources.
This initiative is focused on addressing the broad-reaching prescription opioid problem. The goal is to prevent the next generation of prescription opioid abuse, regardless of socioeconomic status or other demographics.
We’re in a position today to lead on this crisis, to marshal resources from across the community and to make a positive impact
The Alliance’s sole purpose is to promote and amplify the Don’t Live in Denial campaign.
The campaign is based on qualitative and quantitative research and aims to shift the mindsets of parents and caregivers. We want parents and caregivers to move from the “not my kid” mentality to an acknowledgement that prescription opioids are a threat and there are specific actions that can be taken to protect our younger generation from future opioid misuse.
Right now, the media campaign is the primary strategy. Expanding that strategy will be contingent on additional funding from new partners, both public and private, that can step up and provide support both in name and dollars.
We’ve consulted with these experts during the design and vetting of the campaign, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. They’ve given us great input to fine-tune the messaging and tactics to conform with best practices.
The Franklin County Opiate Action plan includes four key strategic areas of focus. This initiative supports the Education component of the Opiate Action plan.
While other resources are being dedicated to treatment and recovery, the plan stresses the need for education to prevent future addiction among our children and young people.
To fill that gap, we asked the corporate community to provide expertise and funding to create content that meets a real need and can make a real impact on preventing future opiate addiction.
Of course not.
The campaign is based on research that revealed most people are aware of the opioid crisis, but drastically underestimate the risk opioids can pose to their own children and family. In short, many parents admitted to having a “not my kid” mindset when it comes to opioids, leading them to not take the right preventative measures.
We’ve talked to numerous families who have shared how this happened to their families, and their ultimate goal is to help prevent more families from going through what they’ve been through.
This initiative has the same goal and can support their stories and the great work they’ve been doing in the community for years.
Our ultimate goal would be to see a drop in the amount of opioid-related deaths in the future. Closer to the campaign, we will measure campaign engagement metrics like web traffic, social media interactions and recruitment of organizations to the Ohio Opioid Education Alliance. We’re also interested in getting baseline metrics to determine the impact of the campaign on the mindset shift among parents.
The campaign was designed to have a long shelf life. It was also designed to scale beyond central Ohio.
Our desire is to encourage partners across the region and the state to participate by lending their name and financial support to keep the campaign going not only in central Ohio, but to expand it to other corners of the state.
The Ohio Opioid Education Alliance is a group of corporations and other organizations committed to preventing the spread of prescription opioid abuse among our children and young people.
Members are providing support for the initiative, such as funding to purchase advertising to extend the Denial, OH campaign.
Oversight of the finances is provided by The Columbus Foundation and ADAMH of Franklin County. All campaign expenditures will be publicly approved by the ADAMH board.
